Released recently in Bengaluru, Malayalam film Anuraga Karikkin Vellam directed by Khalid Rahman, is being well-received not only for its touching and poignant storyline, but also for its soulful and melodic sound track, composed by Prashant Pillai.
‘Manogatham Bhavan’ sung by Mathangi Jagdish, also settled in Bengaluru, and Haricharan, is clocking views by the thousands, everyday.
The first one-a-half minutes of the song sung by Mathangi in her sultry, hypnotic, bluesy voice draws you into the sound track immediately. The haunting melody once again proves that language is no barrier for good music.
In a tête-à-tête with Prashant and Mathangi, we hear about the creative process. “I had worked with the film’s producer on the cult film Double Barrel,” says Prashant. “I connected to the script because it is a simple story. There was none of the typical masala elements. The film follows two stories — that of a man going through a break-up, and his father rekindling his old love.”
It took a little over six months to work on the song, adds Mathangi.
“We worked on an earlier project called Andhra Mess , which is bilingual, it was in Tamil and Hindi. Prashant had at that time mentioned the next song we’ll do, will be in Malayalam. And I told him I haven’t sung in Malayalam in a decade!
I had to do several cuts till I got the words right as I don’t know the language. He said no, no that’s okay, people will be there to help you,” she says, smiling.
Prashant had given Mathangi a gist of the background of the song.
“There was already a basic track when I got involved,” she says, adding: “There was a melodic structure, so he said can we make it more Carnatic in nature. So now that was again a process. I would sing back, and he would approve and we worked back-and-forth like this. It was all ‘nanana’ and ‘tana’, there were no lyrics at that time. So he said specifically use those syllables.”
The melody is in particular phonetic sounds that Prashant was keen on introducing. “I wanted the lyricist to understand that the song needed a lot of specific sounds. So that’s why the song now has so many syllables around that.”
“We always knew it would be a duet,” adds Mathangi. “There were heavier Carnatic bits and the swaram portions with the first cut. Then we had another cut with the lyrics. Getting the right lyrics was essential, adds Prashant.
“Between me and the singers, the lyricist knows Malayalam best. Though I am a Malayali, I was born and raised in Pune and I consider myself very weak in the language. That is the beauty of it because you always look for fresh sounding of words.” He had rejected a couple of lyricists until he settled on Harinarayanan. “He did a fantastic job. ‘Manogatham Bhavan’ gives me the feeling of taking me back to a particular time. The idea was stuck in my head that we need something vintage and classic.”
Following countless interactions with the lyricist, Prashant says, the idea of this being a song of Krishna and Radha struck him in the context of a Carnatic song. “I thought it could be a song about longing. It could be a song about eternal love. It need not be in first person, it need not be from Radha’s or Krishna’s perspective. The first word should pull you into the song, and ‘Manogatham Bhavan’ does that. I decided to stick to Manogatham Bhavan, and then Khalid gave the finer intricacies in terms of the song writing structure, what the song should depict and mean without disturbing the syllables and phonetics.”
Mathangi, on the other hand, worked hard to get the Malayalam right. “In the fourth cut, Prashant wasn’t there, and I was in Chennai. By that time Haricharan’s voice had been frozen. I was asked to do the entire opening of the song in much tighter Malayalam. There was a sound engineer named Ligesh who helped me. She has been receiving huge responses. “Someone wrote in saying, “Thanks a lot for giving us a super memorable song. I downloaded the song yesterday and till today morning, I have heard it 30 times!”
‘Manogatham Bhavan’ ticks every box of a super hit song, from composition and rendition to a good film and appealing video.
Fact File
Mathangi Jagdish
* Ma.Ja is her short name
* She has sung over 475 film songs in four Southern languages
* ‘Manogatham Bhavan’ is her second Malayalam song
* X Macchi, Y Macchi is her most popular number from the Tamil movie Ghajini, with music by Harris Jayraj
* She has hosted, mentored and judged several reality shows on Sun and Vijay TV
* She is a Coke Studio Season One artiste featured with KK and Tochi Raina
Prashant Pillai
* Known as an experimental avant-garde music composer/producer
* He is one of the first freshers to be inducted into A.R.Rahman’s team as an assistant sound engineer
* Worked in the radio industry for over three years, setup and run radio stations across India and trained on-air talents
* Working across five film industries - Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Marathi and Hollywood
* He actively promote up and coming artists.
* Produced the first ever ‘making of a soundtrack’ podcast series for Anuraga Karikkin Vellam
* Swept awards in 2013 for the Best Music Director Award for Amen at Asianet Awards, Vanitha Awards and more
